Adhesives and sealants have been contemplated to supplement or replace suture and staple based applications for many years. Fluid adhesives offer the special challenges of controlling the fluid placement, preventing fluid migration or drips within the body, creating barriers to tissue regrowth, adhesion difficulties to moist tissue, adhesive strength, and blockage of adhesive dispensing orifices in the surgical device. These issues and others have limited the adoption of adhesives.
If adhesives are applied to a porous carrier or bandage pad, the adhesive is drawn into the bandage by wicking or absorption and provides adhesion control. The adhesive can be provided either before or after the bandage is placed onto tissue. Additionally, other additives or compounds such as adhesive initiators, drugs, marking materials, contrasting agents, gene therapies and the like can be incorporated into the adhesive or combined with the bandage. The combination of bandage and adhesive and compound make many additional surgical applications practical including buttressing, drug delivery, fixation and the like. The bandage and adhesive can be permanent or temporary, for external or internal application, and can be used for open surgery, hand assisted laparoscopic surgery, or endoscopic surgery.
Dispensing fluids or gels can ooze, be difficult to control and adhesives and additives can drip into unwanted places. Furthermore, once opened to air, moisture or to adhesion initiators such as base solutions, atmospheric moisture, saline and the like can limit the storage time of the device.
Consequently, a significant need exists for a bandage and adhesive combination that offers a long storage life, offers improved adhesive placement, strong adhesive bonds, reduces adhesive migration, can be used in internal and external surgeries, offers additional features such as drug therapies, image enhancements and the like, controls or reduces the likelihood of blocking the adhesive distribution from the surgical device, and can be used for cutaneous and/or percutaneous surgery.